Does it matter if you are second or third author?
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Though authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions, basically there is no difference in the credit of 2nd and 3rd authors. Order of authourship is based on the contribution to the work. The most important (creative) impact per person is by scientific research of that person alone.
Does the number of authors on a paper matter?
1) The number of authors has nothing to do with the credibility of a paper. 2) Although it would be sensible to evaluate productivity by dividing the number of papers by the number of authors, many institutions do not do so, which encourage undue authorship.
The first author should be that person who contributed most to the work, including writing of the manuscript. The sequence of authors should be determined by the relative overall contributions to the manuscript. It is common practice to have the senior author appear last, sometimes regardless of his or her contribution …
Is second last author important?
First and last positions have traditionally been top-ranked, with a margin to the rest (cf. Walker et al., 2010). It follows from the above ranking that the second position is also important. Second-to-last, however, is not.
Although an author list should only reflect those who have made substantial contributions to a research project and its draft manuscript, we’d be remiss to say that author order doesn’t matter. Traditionally, the last author position is reserved for the supervisor or principal investigator.
How many authors are too many?
The number of authors is unlimited in principal. There are publications with dozens if not hundreds of authors in large international multi-institutional projects. But in the last past years more and more journals have limited the number of co-authors. Typically the limitation is six authors.
Actually, first author probably has more value, because when a publication is cited or listed in your CV, the corresponding author is not identified but it is clear who is first. Usually the first author is also the corresponding author but not always.
Do second author publications matter?
It’s always good to have another paper, even if you are second author. A hiring or review committee may ask you to describe your own contribution to the paper. As long as you can do that honestly and point to some substantive contribution to the paper, it will be to your benefit.
After the first author, the authors are usually listed according to their contribution to the work, from the most to the least. If more than one author contributed equally, you can ask the journal editor to note this in the publication.